Kevin Stefanski pleased with Deshaun Watson’s game in brutal weather
No performance is viewed in a vacuum. Well, no performance should be viewed in a vacuum, but more often than not it’s going to happen.
In a vacuum, the numbers Deshaun Watson put up in his fourth start with the Browns — Saturday’s 17-10 loss to the New Orleans Saints — were so-so at best. He completed just 13 of 31 passes for 135 yards with an interception for a career-low 47.1 passer rating.
To view them in a vacuum, though, would take away a whole lot of context around those numbers. The biggest thing being the weather conditions that made every drop-back an adventure, between the wind altering trajectories and the cold making the ball feel like a brick.
“I think that you definitely consider how he played in the elements in some very, very tough situations,” coach Kevin Stefanski said on a Monday Zoom call. “That last drive to be on the field for that long and to make some really, really unbelievable throws in that moment. I know we didn’t come down with the ball.”
Stefanski was referring to the Browns’ final possession, as they tried to rally from a 17-10 deficit. The Browns marched from their own 20 to the New Orleans 15 in 14 plays.
However, the final four plays ultimately defined the game. The Browns had three incompletions, followed by a fourth-down sack with 19 seconds remaining that sealed their fate.
Two of those plays ended in potential touchdowns passes by Watson dropped. Donovan Peoples-Jones couldn’t hang onto one near the back left corner of the end zone on second down, then David Njoku dropped a ball just shy of the goal line on third down.
After the game, Njoku made a point to apologize to Watson personally, then reiterated his apology while speaking to the media.
“Again, our guys hold themselves to very high standards,” Stefanski said. “I applaud Dave. After the game, said he should make that play. That is what he believes, and we know how tough it was, but for those guys to battle in that situation and to have the plays that they had late in the game I think speaks to how hard they were working.”
Saturday’s game was the second consecutive in which weather was something to be dealt with for Watson.
The cold weather of Cleveland was a factor the Browns had to overcome in the trade derby they were in with the likes of the Saints, Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers to acquire Watson last spring. And Cleveland’s weather, no doubt, is one of the reasons why the Browns gave Watson a fully guaranteed five-year, $230-million contract when they acquired him from Houston in March.
The week before against Baltimore, the weather was more nuisance than major factor. It was 32 degrees with a wind chill of 23 at kickoff, although snow did swirl around the stadium in the fourth quarter.
The weather was the story against New Orleans. It was the coldest regular-season Browns home game, and second-coldest only to the famous “Red Right 88” wild card playoff game in January 1981, with a kickoff temperature of 6 degrees and a wind chill of minus-16.
“It is tough, especially the wind,” Watson said after the game. “Like we said, we can’t control it. Then different air pockets throughout the stadium, you really don’t know where it is going to go. For both teams, if you look at the game, every time we went towards the opposite (east) end of where we entered the stadium, no one really threw the ball because of that wind. You were pretty much going against the wind.
“Then when you are going the opposite direction like we were the last drive, you were going with the wind. It is tough because when you can go with the wind, you can’t really throw and leave it up in the air because it goes with it; the opposite, it is going against us.”